Hong Kong government-commissioned surveys indicate that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and depression are the most prevalent mental disorders among primary and secondary students in the city.
Wong Yan-lung, chairman of the city’s Advisory Committee on Mental Health, said the findings could indicate whether the government was allocating the resources necessary to target the issues, as he shared some key figures of the surveys that would be revealed soon to the public.
Speaking at an event on mental health issues, Wong revealed that according to a survey commissioned by the government involving 6,000 children and adolescents aged between six and 17, ADHD was the most prevalent mental disorder among primary school pupils. This represents around 13 per cent of the group.
Depression was not common among the younger children but was the leading mental health problem across secondary school students, at about 10 per cent, followed by anxiety at 7.8 per cent.
Wong did not reveal the numbers of primary and secondary schoolchildren surveyed.
In another government-commissioned survey involving 4,500 people aged 60 or above, Wong said 70 per cent of the elderly living in care homes had severe forms of dementia. The survey details are yet to be made public.
Of the city’s overall elderly population, 22 per cent have displayed early signs of the neurodegenerative disease.
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Two local universities were delegated by the government to conduct three citywide mental health surveys among different age groups.
Besides the ones concerning the elderly and children, a survey of those aged 15 to 24 was announced in May and also found depression to be the most common mental disorder.
Wong told the SCMP the latest findings showed mental health issues were worth the public’s attention. “When we are drafting policies and allocating resources, we would need to be more targeting,” said Wong, who will step down from his role at the end of this month.
He said the government should also address manpower issues in psychiatric services, where stable patients usually needed to wait for months or even years for their first appointment at public specialist clinics.
“Can the government mobilise different service providers, other than psychiatrists, to deal with the more stable cases and to provide more timely treatment?” Wong said. “That will leave room for younger people who definitely need a psychiatrist’s treatment … in a shorter time frame.”
During the event, held jointly by the Hong Kong Association for the Promotion of Mental Health and the Guangdong Social Psychology Association, Wong, citing the World Health Organization, said there should be at least one psychiatrist for every 10,000 people.
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By this metric, Hong Kong should have at least 730 psychiatrists but has only 427 registered psychiatric specialists.
Wong said support for mental health services should come not only from the government, but also different sectors of the community.
The government proposed 10 measures to boost support to the city’s mental health services in June, after a knife-wielding man who had been receiving counselling killed two women.
Dr Phyllis Chan Kwok-ling, honorary clinical associate professor at the University of Hong Kong’s department of psychiatry, said ADHD took up half of the cases referred to psychiatric specialist outpatient clinics for children in the public system.
Chan, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, added most ADHD cases were related to genetic factors or brain development disorder, noting environmental factors could also exacerbate the condition. She said stress that ensued from the 2019 social unrest and the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak the following year could have induced ADHD and led to depression.
